The first Monday in May — a.k.a. the date of the Met Gala, a.k.a. the party of the year, a.k.a. the Oscars of the East Coast — is coming. That alone should be enough to get everyone’s people-watching juices flowing. The clothes! The celebrities! The money! The chance to comment knowingly on all of the above while in your pajamas.
But this Met Gala is not just any old Met Gala. This Met Gala is celebrating both the next big Costume Institute show and the Costume Institute’s new home: the Condé M. Nast Galleries. Housed in the 11,500-square-foot space that used to be the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gift shop, the fashion galleries will now be the first thing visitors see when they walk into the Great Hall.
In other words: an undeniable declaration that fashion deserves a prime place in the most storied of fine arts institutions.
Wait — that sounds like a big deal.
It is. Ever since the Museum of Costume Art merged with the Met in 1946 and became the Costume Institute, the C.I. has been relegated to the Met’s basement, squished into a cramped, 4,300-square-foot gallery space, like a sort of embarrassing relative. There was no more telling symbol of the fact that fashion was never really considered the aesthetic equivalent of, say, painting or sculpture.
When the Costume Institute wanted to put on its big annual exhibition, it had to either borrow space from other galleries or use a temporary exhibition space, which limited how long its shows could be open. Now it has a large, permanent space of its own, and the exhibition will be up for a full nine months, a development definitely worth celebrating. Maybe that’s why Beyoncé agreed to be a host.
Beyoncé?!
She is an official co-chair of the gala, along with Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Condé Nast’s chief content officer, Anna Wintour, the woman most responsible for making the Met Gala what it is. This will be the first time Beyoncé has graced a Met Gala with her presence in a decade. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, are the honorary chairs, providing the main source of funding for the exhibition and the party itself.
The Bezoses are involved? How’s that going over?
Some see the couple’s involvement as an effort to buy their way to cultural legitimacy. Indeed, one activist group, Everyone Hates Elon, has already begun calling for a boycott of the gala and otherwise trying to embarrass Mr. Bezos. In New York, posters started appearing near the museum and around the city calling the party “the Bezos Met Gala” and claiming that it was “brought to you by worker exploitation.”
Is there a theme?
Yes, and as usual it is connected to the blockbuster exhibition that the party is celebrating. This year, that is the Costume Institute’s spring show, “Costume Art,” which will argue that fashion — or what Andrew Bolton, the department’s curator in charge, called “the dressed body” — is the common thread connecting every other gallery in the museum.
That’s a less hot-button topic than last year’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” though not entirely without its politics. As part of his concept, Mr. Bolton considered “Costume Art” through the lens of various kinds of bodies, including the “pregnant body,” the “corpulent body,” the “disabled body” and the “naked and nude body.”
The nude body! So is the dress code all about bodies?
Perhaps in order to avoid naked-dressing one-upmanship, the dress code this year is actually “Fashion Is Art.” What that means is open to interpretation (even if it does seem a little on the nose for a museum gala), but you can imagine a lot of Saint Laurent Mondrian dresses, or perhaps some pieces from John Galliano’s fall 2007 Dior couture show. That collection paid homage to Christian Dior’s relationship with art and included an outfit meant to mimic Picasso’s “Paul en Arlequin” as well as looks inspired by Goya and Cocteau.
Hopefully no guests will arrive with elaborate frames around their heads, but you never know. Remember in 2019, when Billy Porter, looking like a golden winged phoenix, was borne into the party celebrating “Camp” by six shirtless men? Or when Jared Leto arrived at the gala celebrating Karl Lagerfeld in 2023 dressed as Mr. Lagerfeld’s beloved Birman cat, Choupette?
What’s the price for all of this?
Individual tickets are a whopping $100,000 — $25,000 more than last year — with tables starting at $350,000 (the math is a little confusing, but maybe there are some small tables). It really adds up: The 2025 Met Gala raised a record $31 million. To put that in perspective, last year the New York City Ballet’s spring gala raised $2.7 million.
All the money from ticket sales goes directly to funding the Costume Institute’s yearly budget. Why? Because when the Museum of Costume Art joined the Met, it did so under the stricture that the institute had to pay for itself; it is the only curatorial department in the Met required to do so, and that is in part why the Met Gala was created back in 1948.
What do guests get for their money?
Aside from the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting a cultural institution and the opportunity to mingle with Beyoncé? A cocktail party in the Great Hall, dinner by Olivier Cheng Catering near the Temple of Dendur and lavish floral décor by Raúl Àvila. And there’s always surprise entertainment. Last year, it was Usher and Stevie Wonder.
If I can afford it, can I go?
Only in your dreams. Unlike other cultural fund-raisers, like the Metropolitan Opera’s season-opening gala, the Met Gala is invitation only. Qualifications for inclusion have more to do with buzz, achievement and beauty — Ms. Wintour’s holy trinity — than money. Ms. Wintour, who is also Vogue’s global editorial director, has the final say over every invitation and attendee. Even if you give tons of money to the museum, you will not necessarily qualify, and even if a company buys a table, it cannot choose everyone who will sit at that table. It must run any proposed guests by Ms. Wintour and Vogue and pray for approval. This year, as in 2025, there are about 400 chosen ones, according to a spokeswoman for the Costume Institute.
OK, so who is invited?
The guest list is a closely guarded secret, but this year, as last year, there is an additional host committee led by the Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello (Saint Laurent is sponsoring the exhibition catalog) and the actress Zoë Kravitz and stuffed with boldface names, all of whom will presumably make their entrances on the museum steps.
Members include Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Alex Consani, Misty Copeland, Teyana Taylor, A’ja Wilson, Sam Smith and Chase Sui Wonders. Chances are high Jay-Z will attend to support his wife, as will some combination of Kardashians and Jenners. And then there are everyone’s favorite hot new celebs of the moment, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams: You can bet they’ll get a golden ticket.
Will Zohran Mamdani attend?
Nope. Though the Met is a major New York City institution and tourist attraction, and Mayors Michael R. Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams did attend (albeit not every year), Mr. Mamdani has said he and his wife, Rama Duwaji, are sending their regrets this time around.
The flagrant displays of wealth at the gala are at odds with Mr. Mamdani’s position as a democratic socialist and his pledge to make the city affordable again. Indeed, when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attended in 2021, despite the fact she did so wearing a dress that blared “Tax the Rich,” the criticism was vociferous. That may be why when former Vice President Kamala Harris was a surprise guest last year, she skipped the entrance photo op and attended only the dinner.
Do the celebrities buy their own tickets?
Do dogs fly? No, they are invited by brands (or by brands on the instruction of Vogue), which buy guests’ seats at the table, in addition to custom-making their looks, flying them in and putting them up. In return, the famous guests work the fashion angle. Of course, they can always make a personal donation to the museum.
When does it start?
In theory, the timed arrivals — each guest is allotted a slot — begin at 5 p.m., usually starting with the evening’s co-chairs, and end around 8 p.m. Unless, of course, you are Rihanna, in which case no rules apply. Last year she showed up at 10 p.m., after some other guests had already made the rounds and gone home.
Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014.
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